Today at the farm

Captions: 1. Suvista Richard 2. Native honeybees 3. “I’m looking at you, lorikeet!” 4. Buffalo flies

 

By PAUL OATES, a kiap (patrol officer)  in PNG from 1969-1975, who served in outflung rural areas of Morobe district like Pindiu, Kabwum, Aseki, Wau, Sialum and Finschhafen before being transferred to Port Moresby. He and his wife now run a small property in rural South Eastern Queensland where they breed stud Droughtmaster cattle and grow cabinet timber trees for the future.

 

Our young bull Suvista Richard is coming along and we hope he may do well in the local Show.

The lorikeets won't leave the flowering gum alone and obviously reckon I've grown it just for them.

 The rain has brought out the  buffalo flies again however we've have 21 mm so we can't complain too much  as its still warm enough for the grass to grow. 

With some ground moisture, we are going to try and plant some trees this weekend.

With more rain expected next week, they hopefully will take.

The mouse population in the region has exploded due to the poor rains in February.

All the young mice weren’t drowned in their holes and are now everywhere in plague proportions.

I saw a Butcher bird catch one in the barn a few days ago and fly up in an Ironbark to eat it.

I've gone through $70 worth of ratbait so far and will have to buy more in the next few days.

All this food around has brought out the snakes that are trying to put away some condition before they go into hibernation.

Driving to choir a few days ago we had a huge Eastern Brown slither across the road in front of us.

 He had to be over six foot long,  over two inches thick and a chocolate brown in colour as opposed to the  usual ones we see around here that are more often an olive green to light  shiney fawn.

He saw us coming and turned around as quick as lightning.

 I nearly trod on a small four footer last week next to the cow yards near the vegetable garden.

It was so well camouflaged that I couldn't see it in the grass until it moved.